The February edition of the UK's Classic Rock magazine includes a cover feature and new interview celebrating Rush's 50th anniversary. The 12-page feature mentions the band's upcoming 50th anniversary box set, which we first learned about early last month when a pre-release listing for a Rush 50th anniversary Super Deluxe compilation set appeared on Apple Music. From the article:

... We're here ostensibly to talk about Rush's forthcoming R50 set, the latest collection of the band's live archive housed in a lavish box with new essays. (Full disclosure: I wrote about the band from Vapor Trails through to the final show in LA and everything in between for it.) R50 also features some unreleased and hard-to-find audio from the band's very early club and high school days as well as the final song they played together as a band at the LA Forum show on the R40 tour. It's not only a thing of beauty, but also a bittersweet reminder of just how great Rush were as a live band, regardless of the decade they found themselves in. But, of course, that kind of live legacy only comes from the doing, and with Rush it was years and years of playing every unlit corner of Canada until the rest of the world began to take notice. ...

The article includes an extensive new interview with both Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson where the pair reminisce about their storied 50 year career and also what the future may hold:

The future is unwritten (and questions to Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee about any plans for Rush are gently and politely batted back at me), although the past is littered with signposts, and unlikely trigger points, especially for two men who grew up playing and performing together for most of their adult lives. Thousands of miles - Lifeson at home in Toronto, Lee in London - and a few days apart, the bond between the two Rush members is as tangible as when they were two young men traveling in the back of a van, going from gig to gig across the Canadian wilds. They both look and sound great, vibrant and healthy, belying the fact they've both somehow reached 71. Which seems to come as something of a surprise to both of them, that they're now in what could be described as their third act. ...

Alex: "It's good to jam with friends as you get older. I need to play. Once a week I go to Ged's - it's in the calendar - keep my fingers moving, play Rush stuff, new jams. We do record it, but I couldn't even begin to tell you where it'll go.

Geddy: "Al and I are lifelong friends. We jam together once in a while, it's true. That's all I want to say about that right now." ... "I've been spending the summer getting my fingers in shape because all these other day jobs I've taken -TV, writing and all that - have taken me away from my playing. And so, this was a summer that I dedicated to being at home for my family and also to be able to get my fingers back in shape and to get my head around writing different things, writing poetry and prose. And I don't know if that will end in those things becoming songs, if they'll surface in music or be left as prose. I don't know. But I needed this time to touch base with all those things that made me a musician and all those things that I had been ignoring to do these other projects. And that's where I am. I'm sort of at a crossroads where I don't know which way that will go. But I feel better prepared if I do decide to step into the breach and make music again."

John at Cygnus-X1.net has transcribed and scanned the entire article and made it available online here. As far as the box set itself, it's now listed on Amazon in the UK, including a CD version for $106.66 and a Vinyl version for $208.32, with a release date of March 21st. There's no listing on the Amazon US/Canada sites yet however but it's likely that the price and release date will be comparable. There are few additional details in the article beyond what was in the Apple Music listing, which indicates that the set will include a combination of fifty studio and live tracks with some early rarities thrown in, spanning 4 discs. Here's the full track list:

Disc 1

Not Fade Away
Can't Fight It
Working Man (Vault Edition)
Need Some Love (Live Laura Secord Secondary School)
Before and After (Live Laura Secord Secondary School)
Bad Boy (Live Agora Ballroom)
Garden Road (Live Agora Ballroom)
Anthem (Live Electric Lady Studios)
Fly by Night
Bastille Day
2112 Overture / Temples
By-Tor and the Snow Dog (Live - presumably from ATWAS)
Something for Nothing (Live - presumably from ATWAS)

Disc 2

Closer to the Heart
Xanadu (Live - AFTK Deluxe)
Drum Solo (Live - AFTK Deluxe)
The Trees (Vault)
La Villa Strangiato (Live - Pinkpop Hemispheres Deluxe)
In the Mood (Live - Pinkpop Hemispheres Deluxe)
The Spirit of Radio
Natural Science (Live - PW Deluxe)
A Passage to Bangkok (Live - PW Deluxe)
Tom Sawyer
Limelight (Live MP Deluxe)
Vital Signs (Live MP Deluxe)

Disc 3

YYZ (Live ESL)
Subdivisions
Red Sector A
Witch Hunt (Live GUP)
New World Man (Live GUP)
The Big Money
Time Stand Still
Distant Early Warning (Live ASoH)
Superconductor
Dreamline
Stick It Out
Test for Echo
The Rhythm Method (Live Different Stages)

Disc 4

One Little Victory (Remixed)
Cygnus X-1 (Live Rush in Rio)
The Seeker
Between the Wheels (Live R30)
The Main Monkey Business
Workin' them Angels (Live S&A Live)
Freewill (Live - Time Machine)
Red Barchetta (Live - Time Machine)
Headlong Flight
Manhattan Project (Live Clockwork Angels Tour)
Jacob's Ladder (R40)
What You're Doing / Working Man / Garden Road (Live - Last Show)

The Stan Greenspon Holocaust and Social Justice Education Center in Charlotte, NC will be hosting Rush's Geddy Lee for a community commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day next month on January 27th. Also, Rush's latest official newsletter is now promoting the event as a special one-off as part of Ged's My Effin' Life In Conversation book tour:

SPECIAL GEDDY LEE EVENT - JAN 27, 2025
Charlotte, North Carolina - we will see you on MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 2025 at 7pm ET @ Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts & Civic Engagement for a special edition of GEDDY LEE: IN CONVERSATION from My Effin' Life presented by the Stan Greenspon Centre.

We will also have a special merch table with limited number of signed books and posters for sale, in addition to other specialty items, so get your tickets here before we are sold out!

The event will take place on Monday, January 27th at 7PM at the Stan Greenspon Holocaust and Social Justice Education Center in Charlotte, with tickets available here.

Two years ago on the 3rd anniversary of Neil Peart's passing, Rush tribute band YYNOT held a charity concert dubbed Bubba Bash in celebration of The Professor at the Keswick Theatre outside Philly (Glenside, PA). The event was a huge success so they brought it back the following year, and will be bringing it back this year as well. Bubba Bash 2025 will take place TOMORROW, with tickets available here. The show will be hosted by Cathy Rankin, and feature YYNOT along with special guests Frank Bello (Anthrax), Jason Bittner (Shadows Fall, Overkill, etc.), Jon Dinklage (Clockwork Angels string ensemble), Joe Bergamini (drum instructor, author, etc.), John Wesley (Porcupine Tree), Seven Antonopoulos (Opiate for the Masses), Randy Jackson (Zebra) and more! All proceeds from the show will go to benefit Cedars Sinai Hospital, and you can send along your donation here. YYNOT has made a name for itself in recent years for being one of the premier Rush tribute bands, as well as a great prog-rock band in their own right with 3 albums of original material under their belt. Like previous year's events, it will also be professionally filmed with Executive Producers Michael Mosbach and Tim Starace. You can check out some of videos from last year's event on YYNOT's YouTube channel here.

A new and unique Rush book titled Finding My Way from author/musician Andy Faulkner released last month. Instead of telling the story of the band, analyzing lyrics, or reviewing Rush's music, the book traces Faulkner's personal story of his interactions as a fan of the band, from his live Rush introduction at the Hammersith Odeon in 1980, right up through to their final show at the LA Forum in 2015. From Prog:

"Half a lifetime in pursuit of Rush is the story of my personal Rush history, from the time I first heard 2112, my first live show at Hammersmith Odeon in 1980 and of how I started travelling to Canada and America when the band visits to Europe became so scarce," says Faulkner. "It tells of the people I met and the places I saw, and the events that happened along the way, and reflects all the wonderful adventures I had and the friendships I made because of my love for the greatest rock band in history."

For all the details and to purchase the book, visit AndyFaulkner.net.

Neil Peart's 2004 BMW R1200GS motorcycle will be up for bidding in an upcoming Mecum Auction later this month. The Auction will take place during the 34th annual Vintage & Antique Motorcycle Auction in Las Vegas on January 29-February 1. The bike was ridden on Rush's R30 Anniversary Tour and ultimately sold to a member of the tour's road crew. The winning bidder will also receive the original purchase receipt signed by Neil, along with 2 Neil Peart drum sticks. The bike is expected to sell in the $40-$50K range. You can see photos of the bike and get all the auction details here.

Rush's The Trees has been nominated for this year's Prometheus Award by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which honors classic libertarian fiction (thanks Steve D). The song is one of four finalists selected for the 2025 Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Fiction, which also includes novels by Poul Anderson and Charles Stross, and a story by Rudyard Kipling. From the website:

"The Trees," a 1978 song by Rush, was released on the Canadian rock group's album "Hemispheres." With lyrics by Neil Peart and music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, this was a rare Top-40 rock hit conceived in the fantasy genre. The song warns against coerced equality in a beast fable - or in this case, a "tree fable." Peart poetically present a nature-based fable of envy, "oppression" and misguided revolution motivated by a radical true-believer ideology of coercive egalitarianism. The survival and individuality of both agitating Maples and lofty Oaks are threatened when a seemingly "noble law" is adopted in the forest to keep the trees "equal by hatchet, axe and saw."

The Prometheus Award is one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf. They were first presented in 1979 (for Best Novel) and presented annually since 1982. The final vote will take place in mid-2025. All Libertarian Futurist Society members are eligible to vote. The award will be presented at a major science fiction convention and/or online.

The Sultans of Data YouTube channel put up a video last month which shows a really cool visualization of Rush's most-played live tracks over their touring career. You can check out the video on YouTube here (thanks Darin L).

Rush friend/collaborator Ben Mink was a guest on the Tapestry Music podcast last week, and he spoke a bit about his relationship with Rush and Geddy Lee at the 19:00, 23:30 and 58:40 marks (thanks RushFanForever). You can listen/watch the interview on YouTube here.

MusicRadar.com posted an article this past week where they highlight 5 Rush songs to introduce a guitarist to the band's music. The 5 songs are Fly By Night, A Passage to Bangkok, La Villa Strangiato, Limelight, and The Anarchist:

... "It's an in-your-face song," [Alex] Lifeson told MusicRadar in 2012, "and it's a powerful part of the whole suite. If you listen to the demo and the final version, they're pretty close, although a couple of things are different. There's an instrumental melody line that Nick got us to think about that really gives the song its signature. The rest of it is pretty much the same as it was on the demo. It has an Eastern influence, which is somewhere we've gone before; it's something we all feel and like a lot."...

Audio Ink Radio posted an article this past week where they take a look at several underrated classic rock vocalists, including Rush's Geddy Lee:

The thing that makes Geddy Lee's vocals so individual to him, of course, is his high-pitched singing that makes his vocal lines all his own. In the prog-rock world, it doesn't get any bigger than Rush, but Lee's vocals are often overshadowed by the intricacy of the the instrumentals in the band. It's a shame, but it makes Lee one of the most underrated classic rock singers ever.

Rush producer Nick Raskulinecz was a guest on the Something for Nothing podcast last month, where he chats with hosts Steve and Gerry about his first meeting with Geddy and Alex, shares stories from the recording sessions of Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels, and talks about what it was like to perform at Rush's 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. You can listen to the show below or wherever you get your podcasts:

Now that the Holidays are over and Old Man Winter is taking charge, the time is ripe for some celebrity winter advice from Geddy Lee.

That's all for this week, and all for 2024. On to 2025!! Have a great weekend and an even greater New Year everyone!